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Robert Marcogliese writes: "He was constantly visible, vocal and an active social media participant. And very importantly, he was able to convince, and had the personal confidence to do so, the leader of the major opposition, Richard Bergeron, to serve on the city’s executive committee. "

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The next time you’re stuck in traffic on a main street under construction, consider whether a committee of elected officials could have gotten you through faster. That’s the belief of at least two city councillors: Benoit Dorais, the mayor of the Sud-Ouest borough, and Marvin Rotrand, the councillor for Snowdon.

They did it again. Even as it raised transit fares and slashed bus service, Montreal’s transit authority hiked salaries of its top executives in January, with three of them enjoying 4.5-per-cent boosts, The Gazette has learned. Some lower-level managers were rewarded with hikes of up to 5.5 per cent.

Montreal’s new executive committee took the first step Wednesday toward creating an inspector-general’s office at city hall designed to scrutinize public contracts and root out corruption. The department, which will cost $5 million annually, was the central plank of Mayor Denis Coderre’s anti-corruption campaign platform.

The city’s new executive committee is a promising mix of experience and fresh talent that deserves a chance to prove itself. Nevertheless, the unwieldy size of city council remains a problem that begs fixing.

Two hours after a coalition of youth groups sent out a news release decrying the lack of representation on Montreal’s newly formed executive committee dedicated to young people, Mayor Denis Coderre agreed, via Twitter, and created one.

Re: “Mayor Coderre snubs Projet Montréal” (Gazette, Nov. 19) Montreal is indeed fortunate to both have elected Mayor Denis Coderre and maintain the economic leadership of Marcel Côté as special adviser to the chairman of the executive committee, Pierre Desrochers. Côté’s acceptance of this position brings new hope that, with his proposed initiatives, the economy of downtown Montreal can be revitalized as the economic engine of the city.

Re: “Mayor Coderre snubs Projet Montréal” (Gazette, Nov. 19) By not appointing a single counsellor from Projet Montréal or Mélanie Joly’s team to Montreal’s executive committee (and previously asking for a recount of Richard Bergeron’s seat), Mayor Denis Coderre shows himself as very much playing the traditional Montreal party politics game with its inevitable divisions and conflicts rather than being all-inclusive as the new mayor.

WITH VIDEOS: Pledging that Montreal is at the "beginning of a new era," Denis Coderre was sworn in as the city's 44th mayor Thursday along with nearly 100 councillors at an ornate ceremony in Old Montreal.

Mayor-elect Denis Coderre has the keys to city hall, but before he changes the locks, as he so often quipped during the municipal election campaign, he’ll have to decide which people to entrust with sets of keys of their own. Coderre’s first task as mayor will be to form his inner circle, notably the 11 councillors he gets to name to extra-remunerated positions on the powerful city executive committee that runs Montreal city hall.